Techno-News Blog

By Katie Lepi, Edudemic

If you read Edudemic regularly, you know that we share a lot of infographics here. There are a number of reasons for that: they’re popular, easy to understand, and quick to read – all important qualities for teachers who don’t have a ton of time on their hands. The combination of text and graphics helps many readers remember the information more easily. The handy infographic linked below takes a look at infographics.

http://www.edudemic.com/educational-infographics/

By Katie Lepi, Edudemic

Understanding how to code is a great skill to have. In fact, it is growing to be an important part of a well-rounded education – slowly but surely. With so many careers of the future slated to be STEM based, knowing how to code can be a huge bonus in the job market. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, two of the fastest-growing occupations are in computer science and related fields – expected to grow 53.4% by 2018. There are so many different resources out there to help you learn how to code, and yet so many people still don’t know how, and don’t value the skill a whole lot. Luckily, there are big efforts being made to bring awareness to coding. The Hour Of Code is probably still the most well known at this point, but look out for more to come! The handy infographic linked below takes a look at how many lines of code it takes to create…stuff.

http://www.edudemic.com/how-many-lines-of-code-is-that/

By Cindy Krischer Goodman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

For working professionals, going back to school used to mean dashing from office to classroom. Now, the explosion of online education opportunities has made it easier to juggle jobs and school. Colleges are pushing Web courses and online degrees for people who want to take their careers to the next level without stepping foot on campus. Today, 7 in 10 public and for-profit colleges are offering full online academic programs, as are nearly half of private nonprofit colleges. As schools boost their online offerings, there are new options for working adults who want to add a career skill.

http://www.post-gazette.com/business/dateline/2014/02/09/Professionals-turn-to-online-courses/stories/201402090042

by Richard Garrett, University World News

Confirmation that online higher education has paid its dues and is here to stay, is the recent inclusion of distance learning data in the US federal government’s IPEDS – Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System – database. The fact that inclusion comes 15 years after the online higher education growth ride began, means such decisions are not made lightly. In the slow-and-steady business of official data collection, variables must have staying power, definitions must be commonplace and institutions must actually collect the numbers in reasonably reliable fashion. While the federal data is concerned with multiple ‘distance’ modalities, all the US supply and demand evidence I’ve ever seen suggests all but a small fraction represents online delivery.

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20140205162132677

by PAUL W. BENNETT, Chronicle Herald

Now comes news from the American “snow belt” states that the storm day itself may be threatened by, of all things, the gradual advance of 21st century e-learning. lready, U.S. school districts from Pittsburgh, Pa., to Westerville City, Ohio, to Trimble County, Ky. are beginning to take full advantage of the Internet to convert snow days into cyber-learning days. Since August of 2011, the State of Ohio has authorized school districts to develop “e-day plans” for storm days, implementing them once five days have been lost in the school year. It’s a very ingenious response to the significant loss of student learning time.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/1185467-let-s-take-a-byte-out-of-snow-days

By Abigail Feldman, Tufts Daily

Members of the Tufts University Schools of Arts and Sciences and Engineering faculty voted in December to adopt a new policy on online courses. The policy outlines a two-tier system for approving online courses and expands the web-based courses that count toward graduation from two to five, which represents a semester’s worth of courses, according to the chair of the Education Policy Committee (EPC) David Hammer. “We wanted to make room for online courses in the schedule,” Hammer said. “We wanted to create an atmosphere that would allow experimentation and innovation.” The new policy replaces a temporary one that faculty adopted two years ago when they agreed to revisit the policy in the future, Hammer explained.

http://www.tuftsdaily.com/news/faculty-embraces-online-course-expansion-1.2854918

By Alex Lippa, Eagle-Tribune

A snowstorm kept students out of school Wednesday, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t busy with schoolwork. The Hampstead School District debuted its blizzard bag online learning program on Wednesday. Students were sent home with assignments on Tuesday afternoon, with instructions to complete the work instead of coming to school. If 80 percent of the students completed their assignments Wednesday, the day would not have to be made up at the end of the year. Metzler’s executive assistant Cathy Belcher said while they are still in collecting data, the district believes the day went well.

http://www.eagletribune.com/latestnews/x1262676447/Blizzard-bags-make-debut-in-Hampstead

By Amy S. Choi, Business Week

Business education at Harvard will go online with “Innovating in Health Care,” a course beginning March 31 on HarvardX, the university’s online learning platform. It will be the first HarvardX class taught by a dedicated business school instructor: Regina Herzlinger, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. The main goal of her online class is to spur collaboration, interaction, and networking, but that’s difficult when crowded classrooms are replaced with the solitary glow of a home computer monitor. To overcome the separation factor, she’ll employ a clever collaboration of her own: Project Lever, a “sort of EHarmony for building businesses” into the edX platform. Project Lever was designed as a way to match students with the best resources for their research projects. In Herzlinger’s course, students will use Project Lever to connect with classmates whose skills complement theirs.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-06/harvard-offers-health-care-innovation-online-course

by Paul Cooper, IT ProPortal

A New York-based team has suggested creating a network of free Wi-Fi beamed to earth from tiny satellites placed in low earth orbit. The planned network, which the organisation has dubbed the “Outernet,” would allow access to certain websites for free, from anywhere in the world. The websites chosen for the honour so far are Wikipedia, free learning sites the Khan Academy, Coursera, open-source maps site Open Streetmap, open-source operating system Ubuntu, and blockchains for the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. The project was founded and is currently led by Syed Karim, a University of Illinois graduate currently working for Digital News Ventures, part of the Media Developement Fund, which makes seed investments in news and information start-ups.

http://www.itproportal.com/2014/02/05/introducing-outernet-free-wi-fi-beamed-to-everywhere-on-earth-from-space/

By Rachel Metz, Technology Review

On social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, most people do not communicate freely, for fear of the repercussions. For just over a decade, Facebook has enforced the idea of an authentic online identity tied to each user of a social network. This might be fine for sharing news of a promotion or new baby with friends, but sometimes you’d probably like to post a status update that won’t go on your permanent record. This urge might explain why millions of people, many of them under the age of 25, are flocking to a free smartphone app called Whisper, which lets you share thoughts—a few lines of text set against a background image—without adding your real name. Secret, a newer free app for the iPhone that shares posts anonymously through your existing social networks, is based on the same idea.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/524156/some-mobile-apps-add-anonymity-to-social-networking/

by Tracy Trowbridge, Edutopia

What will the classroom of 2020 look like? As I look ahead, many of the trends we’re seeing today will continue to expand learning beyond the classroom walls to connect educators, students and real-world experiences. These trends are being driven by pioneering teachers and their students, and are fueled by technology — especially the Internet and the cloud. With more than 40 states adopting Common Core and with increased focus on deeper learning and developing creativity, I see exciting movement to a more personalized and collaborative education. Together with the proliferation of devices such as smartphones and tablets, teachers and students will have unprecedented access to tools for creative expression, and will find it even easier to share, to co-create and to experiment with new ideas.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/classroom-cloud-bright-forecast-2020-tacy-trowbridge

by SANDHIYA KANNAN, the Statesman

Open SUNY will offer eight fully online degree programs targeted towards New York State students. The State University of New York announced a new online course initiative on Jan. 14 that will offer students a way to complete entire degree programs online, positioning the university to follow an increasingly important trend in online education. The program, called Open SUNY, was unveiled by SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher during her State of the University Address and will offer eight fully online degree programs through a collaboration across SUNY campuses.

http://sbstatesman.com/2014/02/04/suny-unveils-new-online-course-initiative/

by Janet Murray, the Guardian

Professor Sugata Mitra’s suggestion that children should be allowed to use the internet in exams has sparked a new level of debate about online learning. Speaking at a British Council debate last year, the academic – whose debut novel inspired the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire – suggested that this would inspire teachers and encourage children to become more independent learners. So are schools currently using the internet to its full potential? Do current approaches to teaching and learning get the best out of children? Or are concerns about safety and security stifling their creativity? These were some of the questions raised at a recent debate hosted by the Guardian, in association with Zurich Municipal.

http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2014/feb/04/future-online-learning-safety-challenges-opportunities

By Jeff Dunn, edudemic

The current trend of education technology is nothing to sneeze at. There are iPads and Android devices popping up in classrooms around the world. From BYOD to 1:1 to flipped classrooms, there are a lot of trends that leveraging the power of technology in education. Aside from these few popular trends, there are other signs that technology is truly a key part of education. For example, technology makes it easy for teachers to create visually engaging images that illustrate a key concept. That’s the idea behind this handy chart linked below.

http://www.edudemic.com/technoogy-education-signs/

By mguerena, Edudemic

Here are some common myths about iPads that I come across regularly:

• Teachers will just sit and read the newspaper or play on their iPhone while students are babysat for six hours by their iPad
• Students will no longer interact with each other or their teacher
• Too much screen time is bad for kids
• iPads are not real computers
• Students will steal and or break them

Visit the URL below for the truth.

http://www.edudemic.com/demystifying-5-myths-ipads-classroom/

by the Telegram

The biggest challenge for the online student is the same as it has always been for distance education: Do you have the willpower to finish what you start? According to survey data released last year by nonpartisan, nonprofit Public Agenda, 61 percent of community college students said online classes require more discipline from students than traditional classes. What’s more, despite the recognition that online learning is quickly becoming mainstream in higher education, the survey data suggest that while employers and students recognize a role for online education, at this point at least, they do not trust it as much as they do traditional education. And many community college students currently taking online classes wish they took fewer of them.

http://www.telegram.com/article/20140202/COLUMN72/302029986

by Lawrence Biemiller, Chronicle of Higher Ed

As email and other information services migrate to the cloud, colleges’ information-technology employees are spending less of their time running complex in-house systems and more helping faculty members and administrative colleagues—as well as students—make the most of services provided by companies like Google. That shift puts a premium on the employees’ “soft skills” in communication, relationship building, and project management rather than on technical expertise. That’s one finding of a report, “Today’s Higher Education IT Workforce,” based on a survey of more than 2,000 people by Educause, the education-technology organization.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/college-it-employees-face-shifts-in-responsibilities/50073

By Katie Lepi, Edudemic

Today’s higher education landscape includes a substantial slot dedicated to online learning. With so much technology in our classrooms, and our technology sometimes functioning as our classroom, it should come as no surprise that there is a lot more data being collected pertaining to education these days. The handy infographic linked below takes a look at the world of online higher education and Big Data, including the benefits and drawbacks of online learning, some of the barriers, and how data can help drive improvement in education. Keep reading to learn more!

http://www.edudemic.com/big-data-education-2/

by Nancy Atterberry, Storify

The move towards a new pedagogy is influenced by technology and the abundance of information available online. Our students are digital natives. They expect to use today’s technology in their learning. Students are able to access, apply, and demonstrate learning in various ways. They must develop the skills and knowledge to use technology to locate and apply information. These skills are essential to our students’ success. Educators are using technology to enhance their teaching. New teaching strategies and approaches have resulted from the use of technology. Specifically, technology has changed the role educators play in the classroom. Teacher centered classrooms are being replaced by student centered learning environments. Students take a more active role in their learning and the teacher is there to facilitate and guide. Learning objectives are flexible to provide options for students with diverse learning styles to help them successfully meet the learning objectives.

http://storify.com/NancyAtterberry/a-new-pedagogy-is-emerging

By Perry Chiaramonte, Fox

When Michael Conti learned a federal appeals court had ruled to lift so-called net neutrality regulations, he thought of his kids. Not his own children, but the more than 10,000 students who study at the online charter school he runs. “It is a concern,” said Conti, CEO of PA Cyber, a Pennsylvania-based virtual charter school. “Net neutrality was created to keep everything level, and [with the ruling], it seems we are going backward. The Internet was created to be a free and open exchange.”

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2014/01/27/educators-fear-net-neutrality-reversal-will-increase-cost-learning/

by the New Media Consortium and EDUCAUSE

The NMC Horizon Report > 2014 Higher Education Edition is a collaborative effort between the NMC and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI), an EDUCAUSE Program. This eleventh edition describes annual findings from the NMC Horizon Project, an ongoing research project designed to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have an impact on learning, teaching, and creative inquiry in education. Learning analytics, flipped modalities, and “quantified self” are among the emerging technologies.

http://www.nmc.org/publications/2014-horizon-report-higher-ed